


All the Same, In the End

by exbex



Category: Sherlock (TV), due South
Genre: Angst, Gen, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-22
Updated: 2012-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-29 23:23:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbex/pseuds/exbex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>very vague spoilers for episode 2.03 of Sherlock</p>
    </blockquote>





	All the Same, In the End

**Author's Note:**

> very vague spoilers for episode 2.03 of Sherlock

Ray gets a few nice, normal, boring years in Florida before so much goes down that the Feds put him in witness protection.  
Why the hell they put him in London, riding a desk at Scotland Yard, is beyond him.   
He picks a few obsessions to bide the time. He’s learned to be a patient man, and he’s learned that morality is full of shades of grey, so he patiently waits for one Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade’s marriage to unravel.  
Every time he sees Sherlock Holmes flitting about, with Dr. John Watson trailing behind him (sometimes exasperated, sometimes exhilarated, usually both), he thinks of Benny and Kowalski, and burns the letter he later writes to them.  
**  
Everything ends eventually. The same cycles of pain and death go round and round. His stomach still ties itself in knots when he hears about what happens to Sherlock, when he sees that haunted devastation in John’s face. It could have been Fraser. It could have been Kowalski.  
Lestrade doesn’t remember his name (his fake name, pulled out of a hat, probably), and he looks up at Ray out of those haggard eyes as Ray drapes his coat around him. “Let me give you a lift home, Detective Inspector.”   
Lestrade follows him, silently, and Ray gets him into his flat, pours him a scotch, then, hesitating for a moment, pours himself one as well. They sit in the steady quiet; the world will go on with or without them. Lestrade sips his scotch, looks out of place, squeezing a small teddy bear that must belong to his youngest, squeezing it like it’s one of those stress balls, like it can ground him.  
Ray just sits. He’s barely touched his glass. It’s the most restrained he’s ever been. He wonders if Benny would approve.


End file.
